Tuning up for annual Early Music Festival
Vikings, Romans and Celts will be part of this year’s Galway Early Music Festival which runs from May 8-11 in the City. AD/BC: An Archaeomusicological Adventure charts the development of very ancient European music, moving through medieval German and Gaelic song and dance and featuring music from a Swedish ship, wrecked in 1676.
Concerts, talks and demonstrations, interactive music apps, and street spectacle are included in this year’s Festival. Galway will be filled with the sounds of bronze-age Irish trumpas, animal-headed carnyx and Latin bucinae, as well as lyres, tibia, early Irish harp, triple pipes, medieval flute, Renaissance brass and strings, and rattles and percussion.
There will be a free one-day symposium of talks and demonstrations by international music archaeology specialists from the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP). This is on next Thursday, May 8, from 10am to 4pm in NUIG’s Moore Institute and is open to all.
Concerts will alsobegin on Thursday with Coracle (Griogair Labhruidh, Siobhán Armstrong and Barnaby Brown), performing Spell Weaving and Spilt Blood, with songs and music of Gaelic Scotland. That’s at 8pm in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.
The Friday lunchtime concert at the Chapel of the Poor Clares, Hamelin Anno 1284, is an hour of medieval transverse flute music from 13th century Germany, based on the story of The Pied Piper, performed by Norbert Rodenkirchen.
The shipwreck of the Royal Swedish Flagship Kronan in 1676 is the basis of a multi-media concert by Ensemble Mare Balticum next Friday at 8pm in St Nicholas’ Church. Some 840 men were aboard the ship when it sank. Only 40 survived – one of them a trumpeter. Archaeological dives have discovered numerous instruments, replicas of which will be used in this concert.
Romans and Celts will feature on Saturday, May 10, at 8pm in St Nicholas’ Church in Romans and Celts: War and Peace. The group Ancient Music Ireland will take part, and there will be Roman and Etruscan music from Ludi Scaenici. The concert will culminate with the recreation of a soundscape of a battle between Celts and Romans.
The final Festival concert, Mystical Union: Medieval Songs of Brides and Bridegrooms features chant, song and religious drama by Lucernarium, the student choir of the MA Ritual Chant and Song, World Academy of Music and Dance, UL. It’s on Sunday, May 11, at 4pm in the Augustinian Church.
In addition to the paid-for concerts there will be many free and family events, including a show from award-winning Moonfish Theatre. They will present Buile Shuibhne – Mad Sweeney with live music by Ancient Music Ireland on Saturday, May 10, at 12pm upstairs in Kelly’s Bar. Also on May 10, Roman Centurions of Legion Ireland will march on the streets and demonstrate Roman arms and armour outside the City Museum between 2 and 4pm.
Information and booking at www.galwayearlymusic.com. Tickets also available from Charlie Byrnes Bookshop and at events. Prices range from €15/5.